Texas Tech’s College of Visual and Performing Arts removed its Art Faculty Exhibition from the Center for the Arts in Hobbs, New Mexico on January 16, 2015 in response to attempts to actively censor faculty artwork that was a part of that exhibition. While we are sensitive to the aims and goals of Lea County Commission for the Arts and the dictates of their community standards, we are entrusted with standards of our own paramount among which is protecting and nurturing the freedom of artistic expression of both our faculty and students on this campus and beyond. Moreover, it is essential to our mission and purpose to oppose any action that interferes with our commitment to nondiscrimination and inclusivity.

Art exists to ask questions, to hold a mirror to our norms and encourage us to review their validity, to make us see ourselves for who we are and, as such, provide a vehicle for understanding, change and growth. Because art is sometimes necessarily evocative, art is often the target of censorship. While we understand that well-meaning people can be uncomfortable with the nature of artistic expression, and while we support reasonable measures to address those concerns, unilateral censorship is unsupportable. This incident, while regrettable, is an opportunity to reaffirm CVPA’s core values and an opportunity to encourage a discussion about this issue both within and outside this College.

-Dean Carol Edwards

Enhance the world around you.

The College of Visual and Performing Arts offers a diverse array of programs and courses in
art, music, theatre, and dance. The college seeks to prepare students who will be leaders in
the profession by employing the highest standards in performance, teaching, research, and
artistic and creative vision.

The college provides students with opportunities to be innovative and confident, to think
critically, and to be successful in their chosen field. Courses and degrees emphasize
synthesis and connection via academic and creative programs, internships, and service
learning.The college contributes cultural enrichment and an understanding of the arts
locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

School of Art

The School of Art strives to provide a stimulating environment where students are challenged to develop their creative and scholarly potential through exhibition opportunities, contemporary technologies, interdisciplinarity and critical discourse.

Degree programs engage students in art through an examination of contemporary, historical,
and cross-cultural issues, ideas, and actions in relation to multiple, diverse, and global
visual cultures. The School of Art emphasizes exhibition opportunities, contemporary
technologies, and interdisciplinary opportunities.

School of Music

The School of Music at Texas Tech University provides a professional environment that stimulates the highest standards of excellence in music education, research, and performance.

Degrees offered:Bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree programs

Faculty includes performing specialists on all instruments and in the areas of conducting, composition, electronic music, music technology, music education, music history and literature, and music theory.

Department of Theatre & Dance

The Department of Theatre and Dance is one of only two universities in Texas to offer all traditional degrees in theatre, and one of only three in the southwest to offer a Ph.D. in Fine Arts.
Students pursue a core curriculum that includes training in the areas of design, acting, directing, dance, stage management, history, and playwriting.

Come study and train with us at Texas Tech. Work with your head and your body in a comprehensive, invigorating, non-traditional theatrical adventure!

Fine Arts Doctoral Program

A multidisciplinary doctoral program leading to the Ph.D. degree in fine arts is offered by the faculties in the
College of Visual and Performing Arts. This one-of-a-kind interdisciplinary program stresses academic and artistic
excellence.

Students in the Fine Arts Doctoral Program first obtain a foundational core of knowledge from multidisciplinary
courses in Art, Music, Theatre, and Philosophy and then specialize in a specific area of visual or performing arts.

Your gifts to the College of Visual & Performing Arts help support scholarships, academic programs, student programs, recruiting and much more. You can give online now, or contact the Office of Development and Alumni Relations for more information.

Faculty Awards

In Demand: Alumni News

If you attended the School of Art, the School of Music, or the Department of Theatre & Dance
at Texas Tech University, you are now alumni of the College of Visual & Performing Arts.
We would love to hear about you! Learn More